A while ago I Pinned to one of my Boards, a link for an ‘Instant Vanilla Chai’. Even though the recipe was mostly non-dairy creamers, I thought it was a great idea, and that my sister – a Chai lover – would need this for a gift. Notice I didn’t say ‘Christmas Gift’, because this will never wait that long. It’s just too good. She’ll be sipping it as soon as I can find a way to get it to her in wonderland.

Wonderland? Well, you’d have to know my sister. She resides in a blur of weirdness and occasionally drifts back to reality with a phone call to ‘the voice of reason’ when it’s all just too bizarre. I know I’m in trouble when a perfectly benign conversation takes a turn for the strange, usually containing the phrase, “oh no, wait for it…” So, with everything turning a bit cooler, and knowing that she operates most of her life sans electricity, this will be a warming ‘Drink Me.’ that my Alice can make with just boiling water. And hopefully block out the cacophony of emptiness that the off-the-grid lifestyle has in store for her daily.

‘Drink Me’ – Instant Chai

Step 1:

The cast of characters contains some strange one’s. The original recipe, as I’d said contained about half non-dairy creamers and was labeled ‘Vanilla Chai’. Now, I like a good vanilla chai, but the artificiality of the CoffeeMate was not something I was going for. My Foodie family members won’t drink it. That said, look in your store for Nestle’s Nido, which is dry whole milk. This was always in our hurricane kit when my son was small so I was sure to have instant whole milk available if the need arose. It’s at least real milk.

The next thing you may find odd is the Instant Tea. Read carefully when you shop for this, as out of some 20 varieties of instant iced teas, it was the only one with out sugar OR lemon.

Last, but not least, vanilla sugar. Yes, I keep a small container (about 3 cups or so) in the pantry filled with sugar and 2 vanilla beans floating around. A few days later you have ‘vanilla sugar’. A very light flavor, but since I didn’t have any vanilla powder (yes, you can buy it via mail-order but it’s not a stock item here) I used it to accent the flavor. A very good call.

Step 2:

Gather the spices.

2 tsp Ground Ginger

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Ground Cloves

1 1/4 tsp Ground Cardamom

1 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1 tsp Ground Allspice

1/4 tsp Pepper (black or white)

Pinch of ground anise* (optional – I was out. It’s not everyone’s favorite spice anyway, but adds an exotic hint.)

(A small warning: these are real spices and no matter how much you pulverize them – they will never actually melt. You will have tiny ‘grounds’ in the bottom of your cup.)

Step 3:

In a larger bowl than I started with, mix the milks, tea and sugar

2 Cups Nido (dried whole milk powder)

1 Cup LoFat Powdered Milk (one envelope is 1 cup)

1 1/2 Cups Instant Unsweetened Iced Tea

1 1/2 Cups Sugar (or vanilla sugar)

1/4 Cup Malted Milk Powder *

Step 4:

Wow – looks like dirt!

Step 5:

*Malted Milk Powder – this didn’t make the first photo shot. This was an after thought when the mix just wasn’t creamy enough for me. This is my ‘secret ingredient’ in lots of things, like my Quick Mix…but that’s another Blog. After you’ve whisked it all together, blend it up (in batches) until it’s a fine powder. Find sweet container to house it in, like a Ball jar, or a coffee container – that’s an awesome gift! You can even sneak a vanilla bean to float around in the powder to give it a more ‘nilla punch. And it’s healthy too – you can actually read the ingredient lists on the dried milks…non-dairy? Not so much.

Finale:

Here it is. Pour the hot water over about 2-3 spoonfuls. Now if you’ve got an over-sized Alice’s mug (from the cutest tea room in NYC – Alice’s Tea Cup), you’ll need some more. You can make it as creamy as you like by pouring over hot milk (OMG!). I added a touch of honey to mine, because I really like honey in my chai better. You can get dried honey powder at health food stores, but I wanted you to be able to do this out of your local supermarket. So next time you need to escape to (or from) your own Wonderland you can have this mix available in your coffee cabinet or office desk drawer labeled ‘Drink Me’…and wait for the Cheshire cat smile.

Michelle

Summer’s almost over and the stores are starting to change over what’s in season. Yes, I am really looking forward to all things apple and pumpkin! But until then, I’m using up the last remnants of the days of heat and humidity (oh, yeah that was yesterday!). At my local warehouse club I ran across a good deal on some raspberries. So for a whopping $2.50 I picked up one of those flat, oversized packages marked down before they went ‘bad’. I need to use them quick or freeze them. That said, the things I used them for could easily be done all season with frozen berries. But I digress, one of my favorite things is a salad with a good raspberry vinaigrette. I picked up a Panera Bread Dressing at Target some time ago – I didn’t know they even sold their dressings. I was thrilled to try it. It was good, but still had seeds, which were still like tiny rocks stuck in my teeth! Not to mention, it was really expensive for what it was. After I finished off the bottle I kept it in the back of my mind to re-create. Now’s the perfect time!

I surfed the Net to see if anyone else had done the same and, naturally, there were lots of variations on a ‘raspberry vinaigrette’…almost all of them used a simple mix of raspberry jam and raspberry vinegar and some salt and pepper…”whisk and serve” they said. Uh, no thank you. I want a real salad dressing. Something that adds to the flavor of the veggies, not an overly sweet drizzle with a little pickle-after-bite. So, after some experimenting, I came up with something I really like and I hope you do too.

A Real Raspberry Dressing

Step 1:

Get those berries washed. We’ll only need about a cup, so find something to do with the rest. You can freeze them on a cookie sheet and then put them in a freezer bag and add to wine glasses when the girls come over and be all Martha-like! Or, you can check the next blog and see what I did with the remaining berries. (Spoiler Alert: Donkey says, “Everybody loves parfait!”)

Step 2:

Get together the cast. When making a dressing I use the best quality ingredients I can get my hands on. Of course, that pricey bottle of balsamic needs to be under lock & key! (it’s soooo worth it though!) Anyway… Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Cup Fresh (or frozen/thawed) Raspberries

1/8 Cup Water

1 clove Garlic (chopped or pressed*)

1 tsp Dijon Mustard (or a spicy brown – which I like too)

2 Tbl Honey

1 Tbl Balsamic Vinegar (oh, yea – the good stuff)

1 Tbl Olive Oil

1/8 tsp Pepper

1/4 tsp Salt

*1/8 tsp Xantham Gum (optional)

Step 3:

Mash those berries thru a somewhat fine sieve. I didn’t use the tea strainer that you see in the photo (but it looked good). Although, if your strainer has bigger holes than the seeds then you may need to. Or use a cheesecloth.

Step 4:

You should have about 1/2 cup of raspberry puree to use. Now get out that mini-blender. Note: using a blender is what gives this dressing the ‘pink frothy’ look. If you want the darker red, smooth fancy bottle style, then just use a whisk. The mustard is a wonderful emulsifier and will hold it for you. But if you whisk, you’ll want to ‘press’ the garlic. Blenders are great, but as they emulsify they incorporate air into many things. In this case, those tiny bubbles never go away. But you can’t taste them either.

Step 5:

Get all the goodies into the blender and give it a whirl.

Step 6:

I opted to add in a tiny bit of xanthan gum to make sure the dressing would never separate.

Finale:

There it is ! A real raspberry dressing. Get some greens, and carrots, add some walnuts and even a couple of whole berries and enjoy! You can go all out and top it with a sliced thin grilled chicken breast – just like the restaurant. Did I mention that this is good for you? Only a tablespoon of olive oil is all…in the whole bottle! Feel free to adjust it to your liking. It’s ok to add more honey, or maybe you don’t like the garlic bite. That’s ok – have fun with it – and enjoy, summer’s almost gone (here)!

Michelle